Papyr.us Pick: Augustown
For this month’s #papyruspick I'm highlighting a spectacular read by Jamaican writer, Kei Miller. Since reading it last year, it has been on my list of books to feature here. Augustown teleports you to other times and spaces (physical and mental) and fully immerses you there. From the first page, onward, the writing holds you in its grip thanks to Kei Miller's storytelling, which is some of those most exquisite I've experienced in recent years. His unhurried, deliberate pace allows you to settle in to the world he has created. Complementing that, his beautiful prose betrays his background in poetry. My favourite type of writing is the kind in which, an author embraces language and molds it into something beautiful, evocative and clear. The kind of writing that enables you to viscerally feel what unfolds on the pages. Miller’s writing does so deftly.
Augustown is set in Jamaica, specifically in the namesake community, a community with a past steeped in black Jamaican resistance movements. The book moves between various periods, revealing the victories, injustices, powers and weaknesses that the inhabitants have confronted. Miller makes vivid what to some may be very unfamiliar aspects of Jamaican (Caribbean) history. For certain, these are messy occurrences - struggles that have imparted scars on generations of people...traumas that need to be healed, wrongs that should be made right. Nonetheless, they are important struggles to learn about. To a large extent such struggles have shaped much of what is Jamaica. Kei Miller isn't preachy or convoluted in depicting these happenings. He gives voice to the stories of Augustown with self assurance and a depth of feeling. The story is woven together so well. The characters are so vibrant. Due to all of this, I think it’s almost inevitable that you will be emotionally moved. Augustown is one of those stories that left a deep impression on me and it’s a book intend to read it again and again.
